Books and reading

English Version: Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae.The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm.Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, butthe wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? Русская версия: По рзелульаттам илссеовадний одонго анлигйсокго унвиертисета, не иеемт занчнеия, в кокам пряокде рсапожолены бкувы в солве. Галвоне, чотбы преавя и пслоендяя бквуы блыи на мсете. Осатьлыне бкувы мгоут селдовтаь в плоонм бсепордяке, все-рвано ткест чтаитсея без побрелм. Пичрионй эгото ялвятеся то, что мы не чиатем кдаужю бкуву по отдльенотси, а все солво цликеомю Всё пятноно?

Reading Between the Lines – Why do People Read?

The habit of reading is going out, along with those quaint old bookshops on the corner that are making way for fancier malls that are as devoid of character as the goods they house. It’s the age of technology, and people don’t seem to have the time or the inclination to settle down with a good book any time they’re free – they’d rather fiddle around with their gadgets, or if they must read, do a cursory scan of the latest from the blog world. 

But there are some people like me who make it a point to continue their love affair with books, the one that started as a child when words and the stories they wove formed one’s best friends. And then there are others who discovered the pleasures that books could bring, later on in life. There are various reasons why people read, even today when there are numerous alternatives for entertainment, and here are some of them:

    * The right book at the right time: Kids these days are being wowed by the Harry Potter phenomenon – they begin to read just to get a taste of the hype, and once they’re hooked and have finished devouring the series, they move on to other books. A good habit is thus formed for a lifetime. The younger you are, the more likely you are to take to the reading habit. But, while it’s true that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, there are times when adults, who find themselves with nothing else to do, pick up a book that’s lying around only to find that they enjoy the experience much more than they thought they would.     * An affinity with the characters: How often have you read a book to discover that the lead character is so much like you, that you seem to think, feel and act the same way? How often have you empathized with the situations the hero or heroine finds themselves in, because you have been in similar situations yourself? This reason, at times, forms the basis for liking the book, the author, and the genre, in that subsequent order.     * A liking for the author, not necessarily the genre: I don’t experiment much in my choice of genre, but there are times that I’m open to trying new authors in the hope that I will like their writing style and so have an infinite stream of books to read. What I’ve discovered in the course of this trial and error method is that though I like a particular author, it doesn’t follow that I like all authors who write the same genre.     * A taste for the genre: But there are others who read only if the book is of the genre they fancy – romance, mystery and thrillers find more takers than any other kind of books, mostly because of the feel-good factor of boy and girl living happily ever after or justice being done and the criminal getting what he or she deserves.

Best books top list

In April 2003 the BBC's Big Read began the search for the nation's best-loved novel, and we asked you to nominate your favorite books.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien 2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen 3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman 4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams 5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling 6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee 7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne 8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell 9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis 10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë 11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller 12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë 13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks 14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier 15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger 16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame 17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens 18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott 19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres 20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy 21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell 22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling 23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling 24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling 25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien 26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy 27. Middlemarch, George Eliot 28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving 29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck 30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll 31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson 32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez 33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett 34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens 35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl 36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson 37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute 38. Persuasion, Jane Austen 39. Dune, Frank Herbert 40. Emma, Jane Austen 41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery 42. Watership Down, Richard Adams 43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald 44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas 45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh 46. Animal Farm, George Orwell 47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens 48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy 49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian 50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher

51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett 52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck 53. The Stand, Stephen King 54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy 55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth 56. The BFG, Roald Dahl 57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome 58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell 59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer 60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky 61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman 62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden 63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens 64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough 65. Mort, Terry Pratchett 66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton 67. The Magus, John Fowles 68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman 69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett 70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding 71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind 72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell 73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett 74. Matilda, Roald Dahl 75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding 76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt 77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins 78. Ulysses, James Joyce 79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens 80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson 81. The Twits, Roald Dahl 82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith 83. Holes, Louis Sachar 84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake 85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy 86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson 87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley 88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons 89. Magician, Raymond E Feist 90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac 91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo 92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel 93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett 94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho 95. Katherine, Anya Seton 96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer 97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez 98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson 99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot 100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

Writers’ list top 10 (2009)

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

2. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

6. Hamlet by William Shakespeare

7. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald

8. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

9. The Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov

10. Middlemarch by George Eliot

Readers’ list top

1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein

2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

3. The Bible (Various Contributors)

4. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

5. Cloudstreet by Tim Winton

6. Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix (Book 5) by J. K. Rowling

7. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

8. The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams

9. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

10. A Fortunate Life by A.B. Facey